Congratulations to Physical Sciences Area staff members who have received 2026 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards.
A 2026 Director’s Award for Lifetime Achievement was bestowed upon Michael Levi, a senior scientist in the Physics Division and director of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), “for nearly forty years of extraordinary scientific leadership, pioneering instrumentation, and execution of DESI, advancing Berkeley Lab’s historic leadership as one of the world’s premier institutions for observational cosmology.”
2026 Director’s Awards for Exceptional Achievement were presented to two PSA staff members in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division:
Dan Wang, a research scientist in the Berkeley Accelerator Controls and Instrumentation (BACI) Program, received a 2026 Early Scientific Career Award “for pioneering physics-guided, machine learning (ML)-enabled real-time control that significantly improves stability and performance of accelerator and laser systems, with broad impact across DOE national laboratories.”
Thorsten Hellert, a staff scientist in ATAP’s Advanced Light Source Accelerator Physics Program, received a 2026 Early Scientific Career Award “for establishing Berkeley Lab as a leader in agentic artificial intelligence (AI) for accelerator operations through the development of Osprey, a widely adopted platform for AI-assisted accelerator control, and for catalyzing the DOE-wide collaborations building this field’s shared foundations.”
The 2026 Director’s Achievement Awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, October 22, 3:00-4:15 PM PT, in Berkeley Lab’s Building 50 Auditorium and via livestream video. The ceremony will be followed by a reception in the Building 91 Lounge and Terrace at 4:15-5:30 PM. Add these events to your calendar.
